MoneyOnComputer

[genieswish]

After reading up on "personal branding" the last few days, I'm toying with the idea of starting a personal blog - just a freebie one on blogger.
Partly as a personal journey; to keep me motivated, a few backlinks, a personal touch to my websites and partly to give others a heads up on how much work is actually involved in IM
I'm worried about the commitment involved on top of everything else and also how silly it will look if all my efforts end up being epic fails!
Opinions, advice and experiences on this much appreciated!

[Sugarhill]

From what I've understood to be the problem with blogs is supplying the content. So, how about trying to gather up enough content for at least two months first and then go from there? You'll be able to see how much of a time commitment it will involve for you and whether you'll be able to do it over a long period of time.

[genieswish]

the content isn't the problem as it would be a kind of daily diary - so forward planning isnt really an option in theory it would only take half an hour so so in the evenings for an update, but things rarely work out quite that simple do they?

[Sugarhill]

Exactly, that's why I would suggest that you start writing it now and then do your daily writing from behind as you start the blog. When you have one of those days that you can't write, you'll still have something to post up.

[Silverstar2154]

I mainly operate from a personal blog and getting started I wrote out 5 posts. There weren't anything particularly special or noteworthy about them. Just 5 posts that I couuld post once per day while I worked on getting together more serious posts. After those were up I began to focus on getting up my serious posts and setting a timetable on those (once per week or month depending on the topic) so that I wouldn't feel like I was neglecting my blog and I could continue to work on other more time-conusming projects.

You can use your blog as a diary if you want. Personally I feel there are too many IM blogs that only post "success" stories or have blogs that are clearly written by other people instead of just people documenting their personal journies with all of the successes and failures and missteps along the way.

[genieswish]

thanks silverstar, that was along the lines of what i was thinking - could i have a peek at your blog?

[Silverstar2154]

thanks silverstar, that was along the lines of what i was thinking - could i have a peek at your blog?

Just click my signature.

It's an off-topic blog so I write about mostly things that come to mind that specific day, some sports and US TV ratings. I don't bill it as a money-making blog though I have written over 10 reviews (with the last one coming tomorrow because I've run out of sites and I'm not interested in signing up to more just for the purpose of a review). It's something that keeps me busy and it's still new so I'm not 100% sure if the direction I want to take with it just yet but it's a start.

[genieswish]

blond/senior moment there, didn't even notice the sig, sorry! love the blog - the dominoes made me think of my dad

[Silverstar2154]

blond/senior moment there, didn't even notice the sig, sorry! love the blog - the dominoes made me think of my dad

Thanks. I appreciate that. I posted the dominoes because they reminded me of the men in my family. They always had some at their houses.

[genieswish]

my dad used to be in the pub dominoes team lol, and we always played 7 card brag (think that's what it was called anyways!) when he came home from work on a friday night.

would it be ok to curate a couple of your reviews on my blog? i will give you a link back as the source of course

[Missnc35]

I want to start a personal blog as well, but I have no experience in starting a blog whatsoever. If I start one on Blogger, will I still be able to earn money from it? I know a lot of people start "niche" blogs for money-making purposes, but I really don't have the money to start one that is not free. From what I know Blogger is a free service, but I have heard there are a lot of problems when you try to switch over to your own site. If anyone has any insight on this, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[genieswish]

Yes you can monetise a free blog just the same as one you self host - when you're ready for your own domain You would need to put in redirects to your new site so that you don't get penalised for duplicate content and also lose the traffic that's built up - but it's dead easy, i've just been looking into it for my own site - and if i can do it then believe me, anyone can! Just keep copies of all your posts and the URL's so that when you're ready to move on you can just paste them into the new site if a transfer isn't possible
Your own domain wouldn't be very expensive though - you can get one for a few dollars on namescheap.com, and you can get hosting for really cheap or even free.

[Silverstar2154]

my dad used to be in the pub dominoes team lol, and we always played 7 card brag (think that's what it was called anyways!) when he came home from work on a friday night.

would it be ok to curate a couple of your reviews on my blog? i will give you a link back as the source of course

I am so sorry I haven't been on here in a few days and keeping you waiting for a response lol. I've had some things to take care of but I don't mind if you use a few of my reviews if you like. Thanks for asking!